


The Poly Series

by Sereko



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Multi, Polyamory, Threesome, cause i like cuddles more than any one person should, mostly sweetness and poly beginnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15746826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sereko/pseuds/Sereko
Summary: A self-imposed fic challenge to write as many poly fics for the MCU as I could to jump-start my long dead muse. Each chapter a different combo:1) tony, pepper, bruce2) sam, steve, bucky3) natasha, clint, steve





	1. tony, pepper, bruce

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1: tony, pepper, bruce
> 
> This particular combo (as well as this entire challenge) inspired by @missbeizy and her tags on a gifset of Bruce reuniting with Tony at the start of Infinity War. This is less an overt poly fic and more a beginning stirrings stream-of-consciousness kind of fic that follows canon and goes all the way from Avengers 1 to post-Infinity War. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> {can be read on tumblr [here](http://asdreamsmaycome.tumblr.com/post/177072918691)}

_._

_~~:{ Pepper }:~~_

_.  
_

He was awkward. But it was an awkwardness born of self-consciousness, not lack of social skills or confidence. It was hard for her to wrap her brain around someone who was equally as self-conscious as they were confident, but that was all just a part of the conundrum that was Bruce. 

The conundrum that had become part of her daily life.

She looked at him working alongside Tony and it was hard for her to remember a time when Tony was the only genius in the tower. But she did remember that first look at The Avengers, when they were just flashes of moving images on multiple screens. Too much information for anyone but Tony to process at once.

Not yet a team. 

She had looked through the materials again later in her own time so she could be as thoroughly informed as possible about these other people who seemed to share Tony’s flare for vigilantism. She knew they would become major pieces of the jigsaw puzzle life she was forming with him. She didn’t quite realize how major at the time.

Tony poked Bruce again and she contained her laugh in a tight-lipped smirk from across the lab when, instead of jumping, Bruce clocked Tony low in the stomach in response. They were working together on something she didn’t even pretend to understand. It was probably something as mundane as a toaster. Except a toaster that could hover and bring its charred delicacy to you from across the room… while also maybe hiding lasers that Tony would say are meant to cut the toast in half but are actually meant to slice _enemies_ in half if they come too close.

He’d taken to turning all the kitchen appliances into hidden tools of maiming and subterfuge. Ultron had done a number on his paranoia.

She couldn’t imagine the mental thrill he got anytime Bruce was around. Tony was so rarely challenged by another. She knew how invaluable it was to have someone like that in your life who could understand you implicitly without you having to explain yourself. For most people, that meant someone to whom you could say only one or two words and have them understand the entire paragraph scrolling through your brain. 

For Tony, and she was sure for Bruce as well on some level, it was the ability to speak the language of science and math without having to use metaphors or layman’s terms. Tony had turned explaining incredibly complex concepts in the crudest ways possible into an art form and she knew he took pleasure in it. Part of his ego. She could also see the pleasure he derived from firing back and forth with Bruce about quantum entanglements and electron splicing without the need for explanations. 

There was an honest to god sparkle in his eye that she knew she’d have to address at some point. 

For now, she placed the coffee mugs on the nearest table without interrupting them and walked back out of the lab. 

She could hear FRIDAY faintly behind her say, “Boss, Pepper left you and Mr. Banner refreshments.” 

“Pepper?” Bruce’s voice was high and startled. 

“Pepper!” Tony’s was demanding and needy. 

She smiled to herself and kept walking, not willing to go back and truly interrupt their work session. 

–-

She hadn’t expected the emotional impact of Bruce. On Tony, yes of course. He pretended to be calculating and removed from sentimentality, but he was one of the more emotional people that she knew. And he felt very deeply when it came to friends and family. 

On herself, though, she supposed she never thought she would get quite so attached. 

Bruce was Tony’s friend. They were the ones who spent time together locked away in their lab for hours on end. (She wasn’t quite sure when she had begun referring to it as _theirs_ , but she’d get to that later.) They were the ones who would stumble out of said lab in the wee hours of the morning and end up passed out on the couch propped up against each other. They were the ones who spoke in their own language and danced around each other while they worked with a practiced physicality. 

She was just Tony’s girlfriend. 

Well, not just anything, thank you very much. She was many things, not the least of which a kick-ass business manager. 

But she always imagined in Bruce’s mind, and likely that of the rest of the Avengers, that he saw her as Tony’s significant other and nothing more. 

So, one night, when the two of them were taking a break and enjoying popcorn and a movie in the living room, she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when it was Bruce who beckoned her over. 

“What’s up?” she asked once she had walked to the couch. She briefly glanced behind her when the TV screen went green and saw the ratings warning for a trailer. As her gaze turned back to Bruce, her eyes drifted past Tony who was sitting on the floor with his legs splayed out under the coffee table and his back arched unnaturally against the front of the couch. He circled her ankle loosely with his hand and danced his fingers up her calf.

“Aren’t you going to join us?” Bruce asked. He was already reaching out for her arm as if to pull her down to him, but then seemed to shake himself like he realized half-way through the gesture what he was about to do and second guessed it. 

She smiled. Self-conscious awkwardness for the win. She wasn’t sure when that endearing trait had become something that warmed her heart so much.

Just as Bruce’s face was flushing and his arms were crossing in front of him and his breath was coming out in a pat-pat-pat of nervous laughter, she stopped his inner retreat by plopping down right next to him and smiling at him out of the corner of her eye when she threw her head back into the down cushion. 

.

_~~:{ Bruce }:~~_

_.  
_

“Tony-” Bruce tried.

“Don’t get yourself worked up,” Pepper added.

“I cannot believe him! Insolent little whelp!” Tony spun again, pacing away from them for the _nth_ time.

Pepper sighed and shifted back, joining Bruce in his casual lean against the work table behind them. Their arms pressed together from tip to tip and it felt so nice and simple. Pepper ended up going a step further and leaning her temple to his shoulder. He reached across himself and patted her arm consolingly. They’d both been here many times before.

“It’s one thing to re-target the wrist cannons, but to actually open up her core nervous system to remove the protect function-” Tony spun away again.

“Think I should make some tea?” Bruce asked her. “He’s circled around to this part three times now.”

“Hmm,” Pepper hummed and he enjoyed the way her lips vibrated against his plush sweater. She once told him that he always wore the comfiest things and that it took everything in her sometimes to not just burrow against him and cuddle for hours on end. The fact that the words _Pepper_ and _cuddle_ being in the same sentence had somehow become commonplace for him made him smile.

“I think he might make it to five full loops before he realizes he’s repeating himself. And once he’s aware enough to realize that, then he’ll finally be ready to decompress.”

Tony was facing away from them at that particular moment. He looked tight from the back, his neck strained and pulling everything inward and upward. His arms suddenly flung up into the air and Bruce expelled another put-upon breath.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

But then the strangest thing happened.

Tony reached the end of his designated pacing track and flipped back toward them for the return trip, but all of a sudden he stopped in his tracks. His mouth was open mid-rant and his eyes were blazing, but his arms dropped limply back to his sides and his head canted.

Pepper straightened and lifted her head now that for some reason they had his attention.

“I love you.”

It was a whoosh of air that deflated Tony as he said it. His spine released and his eyes softened and his mouth closed into a fond smile. He walked quickly in their direction and Bruce expected him to kiss or hug or twirl Pepper with whatever romantic revelation had just overcome him.

Instead, just as Bruce was sliding a few inches to the side to give Tony room, Tony reached out to grasp them both by their outward-facing shoulders as if they were one hybrid two-headed beastie and hugged them together. Bruce squinted. Then Tony leaned in to kiss Pepper’s cheek and Bruce nodded as if to say ‘ah there we go’ before he was caught mid-nod at the feel of Tony’s beard scratching against him as he received his own cheek kiss.

Bruce was suddenly acutely aware of all the places he was being touched.

He usually avoided touch in every way he could. He didn’t say hello with hugs, though he hated the hurt frown Thor got when he shied away from his broad embraces. He was insanely aware of his personal space when walking the streets of New York and turned into a popsicle of buzzing anxiety with all the accidental brushes and hits and nudges he got from the throngs of strangers on the sidewalk. He did not use the subway. Just the thought of the underground death box had him shivering with nerves and Tony’s hand unconsciously rubbed his arm to soothe him.

He was a man who wasn’t comfortable in his own skin. Literally. In ever way that phrase could ever be meant, it applied to him.

Therefore, he had never really developed the ability to be comfortable with other people’s skin either. In so far as it touching him. It invited a strange out-of-body experience that made him shake.

Tony was his opposite in that regard. The exact opposite. One hundred and eighty degrees of “I must physically touch something or someone at all moments of all the days ever” opposite.

Which meant that since their brains had such a great time hanging out, Bruce had been forced to find a way to get his body to not mind all the touching… which sounded oddly perverse. Though he supposed it was oddly perverse how much Tony liked, needed, and craved touch. As if that is what gave him energy and not the three cups of coffee before sunrise.

After months and now years of literally working side-by-side with the man, the fact that their hips touched when they stood at the work bench no longer sent a trill of unease through Bruce’s bloodstream. He did still think it was part of some desensitization training that Tony was putting him through - to give him more control with the Hulk and therefore strengthen the team. At least he no longer actually poked him with a stick.

After enough months and enough years, though, he found that not only did he not mind the subtle touches but he kind of liked them. He was actually able to find the comfort in them that so many people talked about.

So, as Tony pulled him and Pepper in for a three-way hug and kissed his cheek, Bruce found himself leaning into it.

–-

He didn’t think he would be gone from Tony for three years. Friends were sparse in his life and someone as well suited to him as Tony was a miracle. He had imagined his permanent fixture status in Tony’s lab would never abate.

He hadn’t planned on Ultron. On Wanda. On Sakaar.

Two years inside the Hulk had given him plenty of time to cope, but also not necessarily the right frame of mind with which to properly heal the fissures in his heart and psyche. The fact that his return to himself only happened out of the need to save the universe meant that there were no rainbows and sparkles to accompany his jolt back into 5′8″ of awkward.

For better or worse, he also didn’t have time to deal with what it meant to be back in his own skin.

As the wizard Strange spirited him through a portal and suddenly his vision was filled with green grass and blue skies and strawberry blonde hair and… Tony… his mind blanked again and he could do no more than stumble a few steps forward and cling to this man who meant so much to him who had been gone from him for so long. He was more thankful for that one brief moment of relief amidst the chaos than anything else in his life.

Tony’s arms around him. Pepper’s hand on his shoulder. The smell of the Earth beneath them.

He felt safe.

A stupid notion to have at that time when everyone and everything was literally anything but…

He didn’t mind the delusion one little bit. The same part of him that had retreated behind the Hulk for so long wanted to retreat in this moment of sanctity as well. Forget everything else but the fact that the touch of these two people was enveloping him in such a strong sense of Self that he’d never felt more whole.

He wanted to pick apart the way Tony’s splayed hand sent goose bumps shooting up the back of neck and how when Pepper moved closer to wrap an arm around his waist the tiny hairs on his arms stood up in pleasure.

He wasn’t sure if his skin was his own so much as it was theirs.

Bruce curled so deep into that moment that his fears, the Doctor’s words, the thrum of something alien, became far away nuisances blocked by a dome of serenity. He closed his eyes, just one blink lasting half a second more than usual, and demanded all his senses to hold this tranquility tightly enough that it would seep into his being. That he, as Bruce Banner, would absorb this knowing and never lose himself again.

“Bruce,” Tony’s voice was as welcoming to him as his arms, despite how laced in shock and worry it was.

Bruce heard it deep in the heart of him. He allowed himself a smile buried in Tony’s shoulder, allowed himself to squeeze this body he had so missed, allowed his free hand to cup the soft curve of Pepper’s neck, allowed himself a swallow of need… before he pulled away and faced the world. 

.

_~~:{ Tony }:~~_

.

Tony slid his hand down Pepper’s arm until he could thread their fingers together. She stirred but didn’t wake and so he propped his chin on her shoulder as he stared down at their hands. She was so much strength wrapped in such a delicate package. The skin over her knuckles felt thin like paper could easily slice through it and he rubbed back and forth over them as if to soothe the imaginary hurt. 

He liked to think her inner strength is what kept Thanos from taking her. Then again, from their brief interaction the Doc and that ‘80s fella seemed like sturdy stock and they had both disintegrated anyway. 

Remembering that horrible moment in time immediately conjured up image after image of Pete and he clenched his eyes shut as if to ward them off. 

Strength didn’t matter. Strength of will, of character, of body, of mind… the culling was apparently random. Sitting on Titan amidst a pile of floating ashes with only one of the six new allies he’d acquired, Tony’s calculations had led him to believe he would be coming back to much less than he did. One in six was horrible odds.

But as the blue girl’s ship landed on the field outside the Avengers compound and he saw Rhodey and Steve and Natasha and Thor all waiting for him, he was finally able to suck in something other than a hyperventilating gasp of a breath. 

Especially when front and center were Pepper and Bruce. 

He had never been so happy to hug anyone in his life. Their eyes were wet and their limbs intermingled as they tried to hold each other up, but their smiles were wide when they saw his form reveal in the lowering exit ramp of the ship. His first thought was how happy he was that they had each other to lean on while they waited in uncertainty for him to return. It had taken too long before he’d been in communication range and he could only imagine how long they had to wonder and doubt. He could see it in those shining eyes of theirs that spilled over with relief and gratitude as he sank into their embrace. 

Similar to when Bruce has stumbled into them in the park mere days (hours? seconds?) before, Tony allowed himself one glorious second of tuning-the-world-out bliss. He had one of them clasped in each of his arms with his head somehow buried on both their shoulders at once. He could smell cinnamon from Pepper and pine from Bruce in the same breath and it was such a perfect mixture of what he had hoped for on that long flight back and what he needed since the moment Peter’s voice faded on the wind that he suddenly was shuddering. The storm of his emotions was about to be unleashed. 

“I can’t- I just- God, I am so glad you’re here,” he finished lamely with barely any volume to his speech. 

“Tony,” Bruce’s voice was heavy and deep and real in his ear and he inhaled one more time to try to keep the storm from cresting. 

He felt Pepper’s hands in his hair and on his neck and sliding down his back. Frantically. Desperately. As if there was still a danger of him slipping away. He turned his head into her and met her with a hard kiss to prove how real he was. To prove to them all how solid they were. Grounded. Alive. 

That had been only a few hours before and now he spooned behind her on the bed in the room they shared at the compound. 

He had forced himself to keep his emotions in check earlier. Needed to in order to reunite with the others. In order to press his forehead to Rhodey’s and have a silent moment of solace. But now, after they’d all retired for the night to nurse their wounds and mourn their far too numerous loses, he let himself go. 

His tears slipped from his cheeks to Pepper’s shoulder and he could see her sleep shirt darken into a bitter pink from the moisture. She pressed back against him as if she could sense his pain, but her eyes were still closed and her breath still even in sleep. 

Which was good because Tony needed something else then too. 

He flailed his other arm back behind him and felt around in empty air. With a frustrated huff and then almost an amused laugh at himself for getting frustrated at a time when his heart felt like it was shattering, he flopped backwards onto the bed so he could turn his head and see the other side. 

Bruce’s curls were tight to his head - he must have gotten a hair cut at some point in his time away - but they still found a way to unfurl against the pillow in a way that Tony could not resist grabbing. He twined them about his fingers as he stared at the man he had missed far more than he let on. He loved Pepper with his heart and soul, but just as a part of his heart had been carved out for Peter, long before that a part had been carved out for Bruce too. 

And, surprisingly for him, not in the friendly way. 

He knew what it felt like to have a friend he would do anything for whom he could be entirely himself around. Rhodey had been that for him for a long time. When he met Bruce, he thought he might fall into that same category. 

Tony did not collect friends. He was very selective with people. Having someone of Bruce’s caliber thrust into his life seemed like kismet. He had never imagined he’d have two best friends whom he trusted so implicitly. But it was plain to see after a few months that when he called Bruce over for a nightcap it was not for the shoot-the-shit reasons that he called Rhodey. 

He liked Bruce near him. 

Like now. 

Bruce didn’t acknowledge the fingers tracing the steps of the cha-cha on his skull, but he did fling one of his arms out to smack unceremoniously against Tony’s belly. Tony grinned, his plan successful, and immediately trapped Bruce’s hand in his. 

He flexed both his hands around his prizes and let out a deep breath. 

He wasn’t sure what this was. Why he seemed to want and need as much of Bruce as he did Pepper - if maybe not in the sexual way… well, not yet anyway. Tony raised an eyebrow at himself with that one. 

There was no questioning the peace that came over him when he had them both in his grasp. The kind of peace he never thought he’d have in his constantly whirring, highly anxious body. 

For whatever reason, despite the surprise and shared glance of curiousness, both Pepper and Bruce seemed willing to abide his need. When he had asked, they had joined him on the bed without protest. Maybe a little hesitation on Bruce’s part, but in the way that he hesitated about every step forward he took in his life. They had settled against Tony’s sides as if it placated their needs as much as his own. On a night like this with the world flipped on its head, he was grateful to have the acceptance without the need of analysis. 

He crisscrossed his arms so their hands pressed against his chest and finally let his eyes slip shut.


	2. sam, steve, bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain got stuck in an endless loop of "must write reaction to that damn kiss in Civil War" for my Sam/Steve/Bucky chapter. Which may seem an odd place to try to start a threesome when one of the people is not, in fact, Sharon Carter. But it did seem like a time when Sam might just explode and force Steve to own up to his shit. 
> 
> And, as per usual, I always seem to need to write the hardest canonical start for a threesome to get myself to believe in how it could happen naturally before I venture into fun AUs... which is why this didn't end up as just a PWP. Next time. ;P

“So what I can’t figure is, did you kiss her for him or for me?”

“Excuse me?” Steve exaggerated his turn-around, his neck prominent as it stretched and flexed. Sam hated him a little bit more.

“I am not the last person who will tell you that kiss came out of fucking nowhere. You did it to prove a point. Were you trying to prove it to me or to your new bestie?”

Technically old bestie, of course. No one could be an older best friend to Steve than James Buchanan.

“It wasn’t out of nowhere. I’ve known her for a while now—”

“And what? You kiss all your longtime friends?”

Steve had the gall to look affronted. “No, of course not. Don’t be crass.”

Sam closed his eyes and allowed himself a second of zen. This was not honestly happening. Steve wasn’t honestly making him be this guy. He pressed his palm to the glass of the nearby patio doors as if the cold of the surface would ground him. He felt like he was losing it.

“Sam, what is this?” Steve was using his earnest voice. Sam did not appreciate it being used on him. “What is going on? I’ve known Sharon for over a year. We care about each other.”

“No.” Sam spun, his eyes bright. “You can lie to yourself all you want, but don’t you lie to me.” He approached Steve who was now crossing his arms defensively. He reached out to touch his elbow. “I know what we had was brief, that you’ve moved on. But we both know you haven’t moved on to her. So, I’ll ask you again. Were you trying to make a point to me or to the love of your life?”

Steve stared hard at him for a long minute. His brows turned down, but Sam was dismayed to see it was with disappointment and not anger.

“Peggy is dead, Sam.”

It was curt and said with so much pain that Sam gave up. He let go of his gentle hold on Steve’s arm and moved to sit on the couch.

“Peggy was an amazing woman,” he offered softly. “She was strong and badass and I know you loved her.” Sam interlocked his fingers and perched his elbows on his knees. He regretted everything right then. He had never had a problem before with confronting Steve on his shit. He used to think that Steve liked that about him. Now he wasn’t sure if Steve liked anything about him.

He was at a fork in the road. He could push through and force Steve, apparently against his will, to face something he was oddly ignoring. Or he could stand up and walk out of his own apartment and try to salvage his relationship with Steve in a week or two when they could put this behind them.

But Steve sitting down next to him and putting a comforting hand on his knee decided it for him.

“You did love Peggy,” he agreed quietly. “But you’ve been in love with Bucky Barnes your entire life.”

There, it was out.

Before Steve could pull away, Sam covered his hand and held it gently against his knee. He turned to him slightly and brazenly cupped his cheek with his other hand.

“I don’t know why you kissed Sharon. You’ve never liked her the way you think you do. Which means you probably don’t realize that Bucky means more to you than a friend. I thought you got over all your hang-ups about being into guys when we were together, but I guess I was wrong. Just – for your own sake, don’t let him go like you did me.”

“I did not have—” Steve began.

Sam pulled away sharply, “Oh don’t you lie to me again. I don’t care that you had hang-ups. I was happy to help you through them. That is honestly not the thing you should have focused on out of everything I said.” He paused significantly.

It was Steve’s turn to stand up and turn away. His face was down-turned in thought like he was trying to figure out a plan to save the world, not figure out his life. Sam knew from experience that he was not good at self-reflection. For such a quiet guy, he was more a man of action than one of thought. Which is at least part of why he was still closeted when Sam met him despite his clear life-long devotion to Bucky.

“Look,” Sam spoke to his knees. “I’m not trying to force something on you—”

Steve cut him off with a look that included one perfectly arched eyebrow.

“I _am_ trying to force something on you,” Sam acquiesced with a nod. “But it’s for your own good – whether you believe that or not. You’re starting to alienate some close friends for this guy. I just don’t want you to be at the edge of the world with only him and not even know why.”

“Only him?” Steve asked incredulous – again, focusing on the wrong thing.

“Oh I very much plan to be on that cliff with you too, but I don’t feel as certain anymore that you aren’t going to eventually push me away hard enough that I might find it difficult to return.”

Steve looked pained and Sam hated putting that look on his face. He still cared deeply for him – dare he say pined for him since the day Steve dropped him for, you guessed it, Bucky. He didn’t get it back then. He’d been confused and hurt to suddenly be pushed aside when he had never begrudged Steve’s friendship with Bucky. He had even spent a year chasing leads to help find him. He hadn’t understood what had changed until Bucky was in front of them again. Steve had fallen in love with Bucky and his relationship with Sam had somehow acted as the conduit.

Sam wasn’t sure how he’d managed to help Steve over the hurdle of his sexual identity and yet he couldn’t get him to acknowledge the source of it.

Steve sat back down, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes still emitting internal upset. Surprisingly, he reached out to clasp Sam’s hand in his.

“I would never push you away.” He pressed closer so their legs were in full contact. “I’ve- I…” he swallowed. “I miss you sometimes.”

“Do you still have the dreams?” He used to hold Steve through some truly horrible nightmares.

“Yes,” Steve admitted but then shook his head once. “But not- that’s not. I miss being with you.”

Sam wanted to make it hard for him. He wanted to be a little shit and reply with ‘I’m with you all the time’ even though he knew exactly what Steve meant. He wanted to be a little shit because this was all yet another deflection and he didn’t think his heart could take that kind of false hope, even for Steve.

He spent one more second pulling the feeling of Steve’s warm palm into himself and then let go.

“Please not like this.”

“Sam—”

“Don’t use me as your safety net. If you’re not ready to admit your feelings for Bucky, then you have to at least admit that you’re confused right now. You kissed Sharon – I think in gratitude or something? – and now you’re trying to get back together with me. In the same 24 hour period. _And_ after you just broke-up with half of the Avengers.”

There was a knock at the door. Sam squinted when a peppering of broken capillaries painted a stripe of pink across the bridge of Steve’s nose.

“You did not!” Sam’s ire was softened by his complete lack of disbelief. “Of course you did,” he huffed as he started making his way to the door.

“He needed to know where I was, just in case. Something may have—” he was up in a sudden panic, but then let his sentence finish dumbly when he stared at a perfectly safe Bucky who showed no signs of distress “—happened.”

“By all means,” Sam said grandiosely as he bowed at the waist and gestured the new guest inside, “come right on in.” Before shutting the door, he looked hard at Steve over Bucky’s head. “Should I just—” he flicked a hand to indicate outside, “leave you to it?”

“Sam.”

Honestly, Sam was impressed how Steve still managed a condescending tone when he was the one acting like a child.

“Please come back inside. You should be here for this.”

“Be here? In my own home?” Sam placed a hand over his heart. “Well gee, how kind of you.” He may or may not have closed the door with a bit more force than necessary.

“Steve?”

Bucky asked about 12 questions with that one word, the first he had spoken since arriving. He was standing awkwardly in the entryway, glancing back and forth between them both. Sam kept his face hard, giving away nothing. This was Steve’s game now apparently and he was in no mood to play the helpful sidekick.

“Hey Buck. Thanks for coming.” Steve gestured him closer so they could all stand equally apart in the worst equilateral triangle known to man.

“Why are we here?” Bucky asked. “Is this a safe house?”

Sam blew out a breath. “This is _my_ house. _I’m_ the one who asked Steve here. _Steve_ , not you. Why you are here is anyone’s guess.”

“Sam.”

“For fuck’s sake! Stop talking to me like I’m a goddamn toddler!” Sam finally exploded, his hand thrown in anger over his head. “This is not _my_ intervention! It’s _yours_.”

Bucky didn’t exactly show emotion, but there was the barest uptick of his brows.

“You love him!” Sam shouted. His hand fanned out towards Bucky. There was no point being subtle now. Sam had no fucks left to give.

“I love _you_!” Steve volleyed back. It was enough to make Sam jerk in place. His mind imprinted Steve saying goodbye to him with this months-later version who suddenly seemed to love him. The mental calculations between point A and point B errored out and so he brushed it off.

“Well, then it’s very clear you _don’t_ love Sharon! Which was the point of this entire thing!”

Bucky propped a hip on one of the bar stools near him, but Sam tried not to notice him. Tried to pretend he had never interrupted in the first place. Tried to pretend that Steve hadn’t said what he had said when it was clear this silent brick of a human being should have been on the receiving end of that declaration.

He continued, “You kissed her. Maybe to prove a point to yourself? But I thought it was directed at us.” This time his arm motion seemed to wrap Bucky in with him. As if they were the same. As if in any way they could be on the same side of things. But when it came to Steve, maybe they were on the same side. “Either to show how over me you are or to put a wall between you and Bucky – like, shit I don’t know – like ‘Hey look at me, totally straight over here, totally into girls, like this one. This girl who I am supposed to like because I can’t like you.’”

In synchronicity, Steve’s brows lowered just as Bucky started to chuckle.

Sam spared Bucky a glance if for no other reason than seeing a smile on the man’s face was off-putting. Was he actually in good spirits? Did he know what good spirits even were beneath the twelve tons of brood?

“I’m not trying to do either of those things. I’m not over you. That’s what I’ve been trying to say this whole time.”

Sam coughed, angling his head to the floor while side-eying Bucky.

“And me?” Bucky asked. His voice was soft in a way Sam hadn’t heard before. Still the same low-register he always had, but there was some roundness to the edges when it was directed at Steve. “Why did you call me here?”

Steve stared at him – no shame, no shyness, no anxiety in confronting the other man head-on. Sam was a little bit in awe.

“Because Sam’s right. I didn’t kiss Sharon for the right reasons. I did it to prove something to you.”

“Hah!” Sam felt zero guilt pumping his fist in the air like Apollo Creed.

Steve didn’t waste the effort to throw Sam a put-upon look, but he did briefly send his eyes skyward. He took a few steps toward Bucky so there were no more distractions in his peripheral vision.

“I think, I was maybe- At the _time_ , I was—” he licked his lips, “I’m not entirely sure. I have spent so long searching for you, trying to save you – usually from yourself – and convincing others that you are worth it. Convincing _you_ that you’re worth it.” He reached for the human fingers that were hanging loosely at Bucky’s side and caught the tips with his own. He clenched his eyes shut and Sam could only surmise it was because the next part was hard and definitely the reason he had deflected Sam’s questioning for so long. “I think I was trying to get a reaction out of you.”

Bucky’s head tilted. Sam found himself mimicking the move.

In a much more familiar gesture when dealing with uncomfortable emotional talk, Steve’s head was now bowed to the floor. No longer facing Bucky open and unafraid, but instead playing with his fingertips like that would center him. And Bucky let him. Sam mulled over the idea that this literal killing machine with one very scary metal arm that was curled around the top of his bar stool was keeping his other arm limp at his side so Steve could do this.

“What kind of a reaction did you want?” Bucky asked in that rolling wave only-for-Steve voice of his.

“The jealous kind.” Steve let go of his hand to scratch nervously behind his ear. Bucky chased him until he was suddenly standing up and the two of them were awkwardly face to face.

Sam spun and dropped his forehead on the nearby sliding glass door. “The 'prove to me you still care about me too' kind,” he mumbled derisively.

“Sam,” Steve sighed.

“The ‘I’ve sacrificed my life and my friends for you so you better give a shit about me’ kind,” he pursed his lips, staring too intently at the finch perched at his bird feeder outside. “The ‘I so want to be over you, but I’m not and please don’t make me have to be’ kind.”

“Sam!”

Sam spun so the backs of his shoulders rested against the glass instead. “What!” He wasn’t even glaring. He was so far past caring enough to glare. He only had petty frustration and vengeance in him now. “Is this seriously why you called this guy over here? Are you honestly standing in the middle of _my_ living room so you can profess your love for him _in front of me_?”

He pushed off the door and walked a few steps, but realized he had no direction in mind. He didn’t want to go closer to Steve and he didn’t want to leave and storming into his room felt far too teenage diva for his tastes.

It turned out it didn’t matter that he started turning like a broken sprinkler because Steve was suddenly all up in his space and forcing his direction with two strong hands wrapped around his biceps.

“I love _you_! How many times do I have to say that to your face before you listen?”

Sam’s expression didn’t change. He couldn’t fathom what emotion he was projecting, but he knew he didn’t have any outward reaction to the words he had wanted to hear so badly so long ago. The words Steve had never said to him. In fact, the words he refused to say so hard that he walked out the door instead.

“I don’t get you, man.” This was surface-level Sam. He was not going to get emotional right now. There was far too much righteous fury in him that he refused to relinquish. He would not cave; he would not sink into the warm hands at his sides or let any softness overtake his gaze. No.

“What are you _doing_?” A question with honest confusion behind it. What the hell was this day. “I thought I knew what was going on in your head. I thought I understood and I just wanted you to admit it. I just wanted you to say how much you love Bucky.” He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard some noise in Bucky’s direction. He couldn’t see, his view was filled with Steve. “Not for me. Not even for him. But for you. Because you’ve been so confused your whole life and for someone who has so much direction and honesty in them, I didn’t want you to keep going through life with this obvious lie hanging over your head. You deserve better than that. You deserve everything,” he finished pitifully.

Emotion had taken over after all. He bit his lip – a small hurt to punish himself for once again falling for the steadfast man before him. He had promised himself he wouldn’t dare hope again, wouldn’t dare let himself pretend he had a chance.

He felt something on his forehead and he opened his eyes to see Steve had pressed their heads together in that way he did with one hand softly cupping the back of Sam’s neck.

“I’m not lying anymore. I think that’s why you’re so confused. And that’s why I brought Buck. Because I wanted to be true to you both.” He inhaled so deeply that Sam could feel air rush across his face. “I do still love you, Sam. That’s real.” He pulled away and Sam watched as his eyes met and held the third member of their party. He was back to the wide open bravery, then.

“But I love you too, Buck,” he choked. “I hope you know that.”

Bucky approached them. Sam couldn’t read him – he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to read the guy if for no other reason than his training as an assassin that stripped his emotions. There was no falter to his step, no heavy breathing, no upturn or downturn to his lips. He just walked. Steadily.

When he reached them, he clasped Steve’s shoulder with his metal hand. Sam could see Steve shiver because Bucky held him where his neck met his collar bone and half of his cool fingers were on skin.

“I know.”

Softness.

Sam stared at him in awe again, but this time Bucky’s eyes flickered to his and they got stuck in an unexpected moment of vulnerability. Both of them open for Steve and unintentionally leaving themselves open for each other. A not altogether comfortable feeling jolted through Sam, but he didn’t let his self-preservation close him off again.

“I think I just got what I wanted,” Sam found himself saying. His mouth opened in bewilderment but there were no more words to follow.

“You wanted me to be honest about why I kissed Sharon,” Steve offered up helpfully.

“Yes.”

“You wanted me to admit that my feelings for Bucky are more than platonic.”

“Yes.”

“Wait,” Bucky cut-in. “You meant you _love me_ love me?” If that was his best impression of a toddler... Also, was that teasing? Was he staring at a man with a smile on his face and humor coming out of his mouth?

Steve had a brief flash of uncertainty like he wasn’t aware of the joke and was honestly worried that Bucky has misinterpreted his grand pronouncement of love. It was quickly overcome by Bucky darting forward and kissing him soundly on the lips. In and out like a knife fight.

Sam felt the reverberation through Steve’s hand that still connected them. Looking at it again, with Bucky's hand on Steve and Steve’s hand on him, Sam realized there was only one missing side of their new much more intimate and yet still awkward equilateral triangle.

He stared blankly at the space between him and Bucky.

“You didn’t want me to get your hopes up unless it was for real,” Steve whispered kindly in his ear. Sam nodded mutely. “This is for real. The reason I hesitated to tell you– hell, the entire reason I left you last year was because when I realized I love Bucky, I thought that meant that I couldn’t truly be in love with you. That my feeling that way about someone else meant I had been lying to myself about how strongly I feel for you.”

He rolled their foreheads together as if he could push his thoughts and intents directly into Sam’s brain. Emotional telepathy would have been super helpful sometimes. Did he know anyone with telepathy?

“I hadn’t considered that I could love you both. It feels like I’m cheating the system.” He paused. “I don’t know how it works or if you two are even willing to let it work, but I’m really hoping you’re willing to try. And I know how selfish I sound, but I– I just… I guess I want to be a little selfish.”

Sam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. The vision blurry from their closeness, but the tip of Steve’s nose and his right eye in sharp focus.

From the moment they had met, he knew he would go to the ends of the world for this man. Somehow, he had briefly snagged a moment in time when that devotion was mutual and it had been one of the best relationships of his life. He had never stopped wanting it back, even though he knew it was doomed from the moment he realized what Steve felt for Bucky. He hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to compete with that. He had thought he’d always be second – Cap’s second in battle, second in Cap’s heart.

He hadn’t thought there could be such a thing as two firsts.

If Steve wanted to try – if The Fucking Winter Soldier was willing to try – then there was nothing on this planet that would stop Sam from falling down that rabbit hole with them.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

He reached up to wrap his fingers around the broad curve of Bucky’s shoulder and sealed the final side of their triangle.


	3. natasha, clint, steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clintasha is one of my otps to end all otps, despite what Joss did to them. They will forever be in my heart. And Romanogers is one of my brotp to end all brotps. So this threesome is pretty much top of the list of my favorite things. I hope I did them all justice. <3
> 
> Time-wise this is set in that mystical non-canon place of many Avengers Tower fics... very roughly placed somewhere after the first Avengers movie and before Winter Soldier.

Clint walked down the hallway with only one eye open, the other squished beneath his palm as he tried to rub the filmy tiredness from it. He managed not to stumble despite being down one and half senses and entered the kitchen with a jaw-cracking yawn.

Steve and Tony stared at him from the couch. It was late-ish, but not so late as to be surprised that others were still awake. Bruce wasn’t, of course, because his brain shut itself down like clockwork at an appalling 9pm every night. Then again, he was always up by 6am and if Clint was nice to him and managed to refrain from teasing him for an entire day straight then he would have some kind of breakfast waiting for him upon waking.

The clear melody of the Friends opening theme song was playing which meant that Steve had finally made it to the ‘90s in his binge watching. Neither Steve nor Tony were watching the TV anymore, they were still staring at Clint.

“Do you have a girl at the tower?” Tony finally asked with a lascivious curl to his lip.

Clint didn’t immediately get why he was being asked, but then he felt a slight draft when he pitched up on his tip-toes to reach one of the last water glasses left in the back of the cupboard. He glanced briefly down at himself and he was still fully covered, albeit in only boxer-briefs and a silky kimono-style robe that ended just under his bum.

“I always have a girl at the tower,” he shrugged as he turned towards them, glass in hand, and began filling it from the island sink.

“Natasha doesn’t count,” Steve immediately responded. Almost too quickly. Clint looked over at him while he took a gulp of water, intrigued by the crinkle in the Captain’s brow.

“Oh? Okay,” Clint shrugged again and turned to leave.

“Hey, no fair!” Tony immediately whined behind him. “I want details! There better be a report on my desk tomorrow morning, Barton!” His childish cackling followed Clint down the hall.

\---

“I think the Captain’s into you.”

Natasha looked up from the foot of the bed. She was laid out on her stomach on top of the rumpled sheets, her ankles crossed and feet swinging back and forth over their pillows while her torso was propped up by her elbows so she could watch TV. He handed her the half empty glass of water and she took several sips before answering him.

“Yeah?” Most people would interpret the tone as surprised.

He laughed, outright and braying and unencumbered by any need to hide his honest joy. Unencumbered was the definition of his relationship with Natasha. He dropped down beside her on the bed, imitating her position and knocking their shoulders together.

“How long have you known? And you didn’t tell me? Rude!”

She took another sip of water, then handed the glass back to him so he could finish it off.

“It felt too early to be addressed.”

He glanced sideways at her. “Too early for him? Or for me?”

Her face softened, amused, and she leaned into him so both their weights were dependent on the other in order to stay upright.

“Well, it might be time now. Stark knows. So either you talk to Steve or it will inevitably come out in a much less classy way when Tony’s had too much scotch.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, then dropped the remote on the ground and flipped over so she could stare up at him.

When she didn’t immediately say anything else, he reached out with one hand and brushed the hair out of her face for her. She caught his fingers before he could pull away and held them to her cheek. Warmth started to build up from the contact and he brushed his thumb over the ridge of her cheekbone to spread the feeling.

He smiled when her eyes fluttered shut. This was the Natasha version of scratching a kitten under its chin.

He remembered the night when he’d first discovered it - tangled up in unfamiliar clothes from their mission on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar city. It had taken a lot out of both of them and while it hadn’t been the first time they’d ended a mission with sex-for-relief, it had been the first time they had come up for air and acknowledged each other and the act for more than the scratching an itch that it had started as.

It wasn’t the mooney, soft-edged camera filter, silent movie version of sex that media usually dissolved into when something _meant_ something. If anything it was the opposite. They usually didn’t talk when it was biting teeth and clawing hands and urgent relief, but this time they _did_.

Clint had paused when she had him up against the wall and just kind of tilted his head and said, “Hi.”

And she had paused too and smiled just barely like he was endearing to her and had let out a breath with, “Hi too.”

The rest of the night had been a stuttering engine of fast need and sudden stops filled with random thoughts and questions completely unrelated to anything.

“Did you see that wig line on the Armenian dignitary?”

“I like butterflies. Not the small mothy ones, but when they get big and have those curls of black around their wings, you know?”

“You were way too nice to Coulson before we left. You realize he’s only going to crush on you more now?”

“Your neck always smells like freesia. I suppose it’s your perfume. I mean of course it is. But I like it. Smells like home.”

“If I saw a hundred hands in a line-up, I could find yours without looking.”

“Don’t stop.”

“Don’t leave.”

Before they had fallen asleep, half strung-out from being nothing but open and themselves with each other for over an hour, Clint had stroked her cheek in just the way he was doing now and he had watched as she seemed to unveil an even deeper layer of her core self with her eyes closed and mouth soft and fingers half-heartedly curling and uncurling against his breastbone.

It was practically a trigger. But instead of the horrific ones that sent her back into the festering past of the Red Room, it propelled her into the hopeful future where her heart was no longer alone.

In the here and now, on another borrowed bed in another borrowed room that was temporarily theirs, he leaned down and kissed her.

\---

The next morning, they decided the way to deal with it was to just stop pretending to hide. The irony being that they never truly had. He and Natasha spent most of their time together. He and Natasha usually shared a room. He and Natasha had more history than most of the rest of their team.

But everyone still seemed unsure if they were actually together.

It was teased about and gossiped about and even when they had blatantly admitted to being together, the others just brushed them off as lying about it. He wasn’t sure what part wasn’t believable, until he realized that they just didn’t believe him and Natasha.

They were assassins. More notably for the Avengers, they were _spies_.

Deceitful. Liars. Wearers of masks. Owners of aliases.

What could be believed?

So, if walking out into the kitchen late at night wearing Natasha’s robe hadn’t sealed it, then they would amp up the PDA to their “down time at Auntie Clarise’s cabin” levels. 

Clint’s leg on her chair while they ate shawarma wasn’t enough, so Natasha plastered herself to his back and let his weight hold her up while he poured them both coffee. Bruce did a double-take when he walked in from the lab and circled them cautiously for a minute like they were an unknown variable to his anxiety.

“I made bacon,” he slowly drawled. He pointed awkwardly to where a plate was set on the counter nearby as if waiting to see how they’d react.

Natasha darted out a hand and was munching on one piece in seconds flat. Bruce looked startled. She watched him, amused, as she fed a second to Clint with an arm wrapped over his shoulder.

“You...” he motioned between the two of them. 

“We...?”

Clint couldn’t contain his grin when he felt Natasha’s non-bacon-wielding hand slide across his stomach and tease under the edge of his loose cotton t-shirt. Definitely not leaving any margin for error, then. 

He grasped her fingers in his and raised them up to kiss her knuckles. He was turning as he did it and his eyes caught baby blue at the kitchen entrance.

Betrayed was probably a strong word to use to explain the look on Steve’s face. It wasn’t exactly hurt either. Or even jealous. It was just _off_. Off in a way that meant that overt PDA was not the best course of action.

Clint hummed partly in displeasure and partly in frustration - a sound quiet enough for no one to hear but for Natasha, who was still plastered against his back, to feel. It hadn’t even been an intentional cue, but their years of reading the subtlest hints off of each other while in deep cover meant they both slipped apart as naturally and fluidly as water reaching a fork in a stream.

Bruce seemed a bit stupefied. Steve, more importantly, loosened up almost instantaneously and entered the kitchen with a little shake of the head like it had all been a collective fever dream.

And they all went about their day.

\---

The Tower was empty.

Or, well, the Avengers part of The Tower was empty of... you know.. Avengers.

So Clint and Natasha had commandeered the massive couch that could seat six and were sitting at either end - their backs against the arms, knees slightly bent, toes just barely touching in their socks. A mirrored Rorschach of off-duty slothful agents.

A movie that required no thought or emotional investment played on the TV. Empty bowls of ice cream on the coffee table. Their eyes on each other.

“It’s too much for him, I think.”

She was continuing a conversation they’d been having all night. Clint hadn’t been able to shake the way Steve had looked at him like there was something _wrong_. Of course, that meant hours of over-analyzing and talking themselves in unnecessary circles. They tended to lose their everyday sharpened focus of split-second decisions when they had a night off. Their minds expanded to fit the free time allotted.

“Too much to process? Or you mean the propriety of it all.” He mock-gasped and held his chest like a black-and-white film damsel. “You think he thinks it would be unprofessional?”

“Mmm,” she agreed. Partly. “That and I think that even though he finally stopped wearing suits inside and doesn’t always walk like a steel rod is fused into his spine... He’s still hiding. He’s still pretending to be _big_.”

Clint shrugged. “We all have different skins that we shed. I was a circus performer. You were an assassin. He used to be small. He just needs to shed his.”

“But that’s my point,” she continued. “He did the opposite. He didn’t shed his skin, he grew a new one over top of his old one. Unlike us, the old him is his core, not his mask.”

“So you’re saying the new him is still small him and we should stop beating him over the head with our relationship?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed happily like she could see the light bulb over his head shining brightly.

She crawled over between his legs and kissed him. It had just been a peck. A sort of congratulatory reward. But Clint shifted his head to the side and opened his mouth against her to make it something more. Tony’s soundproofed walls were exactly as noise canceling as he’d promised which meant their dalliances had returned to pre-Avengers levels, and yet, Clint remained insatiable.

Their tongues tasted of vanilla and Clint swept in several times to chase the sweetness. Natasha caught his tongue on one of the invasions, though, and sucked it hard into her own mouth.

Clint bucked under her, his hands sliding down her sides and digging into her hips. She was hard muscle turned liquid with the fire building between them and he tried desperately to keep her in his grasp as she writhed above him.

“Nat,” he panted, tearing away from her mouth to nose at the side of her jaw. “Bedroom.”

“Really? Can’t we do it on the couch once?”

He bit her earlobe.

“I know you want to stick it to Tony, but I would rather not die before he finishes that new bow he’s making me so...” he slapped her ass, _playfully_. God help him if he ever did it as a command.

She growled and dove down to pry open his mouth with her teeth. Hard, punishing, desperate. When his mind started to fog with need and lack of air, that’s when she pulled away.

It took him too long to realize that she wasn’t giving him a reprieve to gulp in necessary lungfuls of oxygen.

Her hips were unmoving in his hands. Her jaw was locked. Her eyes pinned on something over his shoulder. She was a predatory cat suddenly aware of another alpha trying to steal her kill.

Clint was more unbothered than most would be at knowing he was the “kill” in that scenario.

“You were out,” she said in an almost petulant accusatory way.

“I am back,” was the answer.

The voice was deep. Oddly calm. Maybe just the barest hint of brittle, but it was hard for Clint to tell with the way he was still pinned unseeing beneath Natasha. It was Steve, regardless of the tone, which is all that mattered.

Steve.

 _Fuck_.

Natasha wasn’t moving and Clint couldn’t figure out why this stalemate was lasting so long. She was not the bashful type and Steve _was_. He should have either run away by now or scolded them.

Then, Natasha was shifting her weight back like she was going to sit on his lap and a shadow fell over them. Clint looked up at their leader completely confused. He tried to sit up - propriety and all - but Steve held him in place with three steepled fingers on his shoulder.

A very awkward silence fell over them. Clint laying on the couch. Natasha straddling his lap. Steve perched on the edge of the thankfully sturdy coffee table.

They waited for Steve to speak, because he very clearly had something to say. If there hadn’t been intent in his eyes, Natasha would have had them both up and in their bedroom mere seconds after he caught them. The gamut of things that Clint foresaw coming out of Steve’s mouth were only narrowly related to what he actually said. 

“How long have you been together?”

It wasn’t the easiest question to answer, only because of their complicated history, but it was a softball compared to other things Clint thought he might have asked. Clint glanced up at Natasha. They shared a series of quirked eyebrows by way of conversation before he turned back to Steve and answered, “In the way you’re thinking, five years.”

“Is there a way I’m not thinking of it?”

Clint successfully resisted brushing his finger over the faint blush tinging Steve’s cheeks. “Let’s just stick with five.”

“You can ask us about the other eight if you’re not about to ask us to break up for the sake of the team,” Natasha added brazenly. Clint didn’t react. That had been part of their eyebrow conversation.

“Wha-No..I... ” and suddenly Steve looked much less Captain America and much more the skinny guy from Brooklyn. Natasha, no surprise, had been right.

Clint touched Natasha’s thigh and they both moved as one into proper sitting positions side-by-side. If it could be believed, Steve may have looked sad at the change?

Natasha gave into the need for touch for both of them, since Steve was more familiar and comfortable with her. She reached for one of his hands and caught just the tips of his fingers in her own. Steve seemed to both tense and relax at the same time.

“You gotta help us out here, Steve. What’s going on?”

His eyes had been darting back and forth between them, but they sharpened on her at her question. “You’re _together_ together?”

“We’re not in high school, you can say the word sex,” Clint teased. If anything, Steve’s blush deepened. Clint cocked his head at the sight. Unlike Natasha, he hadn’t been privy to any of the Captain’s more vulnerable, personal moments. He knew him as confident and sure and righteous. The man before him was no one he’d ever met.

Natasha nudged him with her shoulder to shut him up. He obliged by sitting back a bit and curling one arm around her from behind.

“Do you like that we’re together?” she inquired. Her tone was soft and lacked all accusation. It seemed obtuse except that Steve reacted to it like she had dived to the very center of him.

When he didn’t answer but for his eyes drifting down and away, she let go of his hand and brought two fingers to his chin. “Steve,” she encouraged. “Whatever it is, you can tell us. Your secrets are safe with us.”

“Spies,” Clint added helpfully. _Liars_ , his mind hissed unhelpfully. Of anyone, he thought Steve mistrusted them most because of their occupation.

Thankfully, though, Steve didn’t shutter himself at the reminder. He slowly raised his eyes back to Natasha’s. Stoic not shy. That steel spine of his youth that pitted 80 pounds wet against a gang of bullies shining through.

To say Clint was intrigued was putting it mildly. He had a feeling their night was about to get a lot more interesting.

“I like seeing you together. You hide it well, and for a while I thought it was just because you’ve known each other so long, but now... there was once you were holding hands walking down the hall. You were alone, but I was with Tony in his office and saw it on the security camera feed.” They shared a brief look. They thought they had clocked all of Tony’s cameras. Time to do another bedroom sweep. “It was a small thing, but after that I started to notice how often you touch. Brief things. A hand on a arm while you’re talking or Clint’s hand on your lower back when you leave a room. Nothing out of the ordinary. But now...”

_But now..._

“Do you miss it?”

Steve scoffed. “Miss what? I never had it. I had a kiss and a promise and a sacrifice.”

“I meant with Bucky.”

Clint had never seen a man turn to stone so quickly. Natasha didn’t let him dwell on it. Didn’t let herself be put off by it. She’d interrogated worse. Still, Clint’s hand curled over her hip and he rubbed soothingly with his thumb.

The funny thing was that Steve, again, did not run away.

He was firmly seated on the coffee table with his hands on his thighs and his head three degrees away from staring in their direction. Clint realized Natasha wasn’t touching him anymore and took a chance - on Steve’s curiosity, on his presence there that night when he was supposed to be out for hours, on the particular kind of pain that flittered through his eyes at Bucky’s name - and laid his free hand over Steve’s left.

Their leader shuddered. His eyes dropped closed. His held breath eased out in a soundless sigh.

Encouraged, Clint let go of Natasha and pushed forward so he could rest his other hand over Steve’s right and close the loop they had formed. Steve’s inhale was sharp and Clint chased it by carefully, incrementally, moving his hands up Steve’s arms. He charted the broad expanse of him until his fingers intertwined behind Steve’s neck and his thumbs tickled the soft spot under his ears. The air was so charged between them, Clint swore he saw sparks as he leaned in until the very tips of their noses brushed.

Steve’s eyes flew open. His neck strained against the strength of Clint’s hands.

“You- you don’t have to. It’s okay. You don’t-” he babbled through jumping breaths. His heartbeat was a hummingbird against Clint’s palm.

The instinct was there to shush, to coddle, to comfort, to treat him like a skittish kitten. Clint didn’t give in to it because he knew the skinny kid from Brooklyn may have been skinny, but he wasn’t scared. He may have been bashful, but he wasn’t shy. He kept his face an inch away, whispered “I want it,” and waited.

Steve’s mouth was mashed against his in less than a blink. It was hard teeth and no finesse and a need with no knowledge of how to feed it.

Clint eased back so his lips could plump again and couldn’t resist smiling into the next press. Slower this time, a little softer. By the third kiss, Steve was letting him lead and he slanted his head slightly to claim the man’s mouth more fully.

Natasha’s arm slid across his back and he could feel her chin rest on his shoulder. She wouldn’t touch Steve yet, not until they had permission, but touching Clint was fair game. Her other hand skittered across his chest and he hummed at the feel. Steve mewled against him and Clint couldn’t help but pull back enough to chuckle, realizing it was his hum that caused it.

Steve’s eyes were wide and so so pretty. His cheeks flushed. His mouth plumped red and shiny.

Clint wanted to eat him alive.

“He’s so pretty,” Natasha echoed his thoughts against his neck. Clint nudged her temple in agreement. His hands still had Steve trapped, but in a very good sign of things to come, the Captain was not trying to pull away.

“Is that what you’ve been too afraid to ask for?”

Steve had not stopped looking at Clint’s mouth since they parted, but his gaze startled up and away at that. To Natasha.

 _Both of us_ , Clint thought. His dick twitched in his sweatpants.

Well shit.

He let one of his hands slip away so Natasha could replace it with her own. And then he watched as his enemy-friend-lover-lifemate and America’s Soldier locked lips. Steve was much gentler with her, but Natasha immediately picked up on his gender discrimination and pushed in hard and deep to blow past it. He gasped at her forwardness, which of course only allowed her to use her tongue to try to suck all the oxygen from his lungs. Clint could relate.

Jealousy was not a thing they did.

Possession yes. _Hell_ yes.

But not jealousy. Not with the kind of lives they had led, the kind of covers they’d been forced to pull on like yesterday’s clothes, the kind of sex-for-information scenarios that both of them had been forced into. They had determined a while ago that when all the masks were pulled away, the people underneath belonged to each other, and they still belonged to each even when new masks said different.

This wasn’t sex for the sake of one of their assignments and neither of them were wearing any security blanket layers over their hearts and minds right then - hell they barely had thin cotton clothing between their bodies - but there was no fear or hesitation in bringing Steve in.

Sweet Steve who was touch-starved and unsure and _wanted_ but didn’t know how to ask.

They would welcome him in any day of the week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed this little jaunt through polyamorous ships! The challenge succeeded in jump-starting my muse and I am ever so grateful for that, but I also hope that it served to give a few of you readers out there a smile. :)


End file.
